PADI
- Thread starter holymonk
- Start date
You seem to have made the mistake like everyone else.
The number they give is only an advised recommended depth.
Also basic diving insurance covers 30m.
If you take 5 mins surfacing from 30m you will be fine, it Al depends on how long you were at 30m for. You need to keep an eye on your dive computer in any case. Or if your unsure, do a 2min stop at 10m and a 5 min stop at 5m.
That's what I was taught.
Padi Open Water also states that it only covers you for the conditions you have trained in. It is very dodgy ground diving below 18m and expecting that your travel insurance will cover you. I have seen quite a few people find this out the hard way.
Also you views on decompression are very simplistic, it is a bit worrying you are giving potentially dangerous advice on a subject you don't have a fully understanding of. I just simulated a few dives and it would only take 20 minutes at 30m for those stops to be too little when diving air.
Diving Insurance will only cover you to the depth stated on your deepest qualification card simple as that no ifs no buts.
My insurance clearly states that I am covered to the maximum depth that I am qualified to and thats 80m.
Go beyond that at your own peril and if you have a large enough bank balance.
It very rarely goes wrong thats for sure but if it does and you are somewhere that you need to pay for decompression chamber treatments then your insurance WILL NOT pay out if you went deeper than your qualification.
Insurance docs simply state: dives upto depth of 30m. You have to pay for additional cover to go deeper.
The diving school have even said (3 so far) that going deeper is fine as long as your with a qualified instructor and have the insurance cover. All have taken me to depths as far as insurance allows.
Anyway stop arguing about this... ssi or padi both as good as each other. I'm just biased to ssi
Ok take out insurance then dive beyond your "recommended" depth limit or your qualified depth limit, get a hit of DCS then see who will pay for it because I guarantee it will not be your insurance company.
If you are partaking in a course that requires you to extend your depth beyond your current qualification then yes diving deeper with an instructor is allowed and your insurance will cover you i.e. a extended range or trimix type course.
If however you are just on a guided dive with an instructor and not under tuition then the instructor will be in breach of there agency standards by taking you deeper than you are qualified. I personally know 2 instructors that had there instructor status removed for doing exactly this 1 PADI and 1 BSAC.
Every dive insurance my wife and I have had, (Divemaster, DAN etc), clearly states covered to maximum depth of qualification with no extra charge made.
Got a scan of my instructor card no problem, can't find my 80m ticket so trying to show a print screen of the BSAC online page showing my diving quals which includes my instructor number which can be seen in the scanned image of my instructor card, the only thing I have erased is my BSAC member Number.
As you can see it states Advanced Mixed Gas CCR Diver which is a 80m ticket with unrestricted decompression and using mixed gases suitable for the dive.
Hope that is good enough
Soldato
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- 31 Mar 2006
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- 6,606
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- Sydney Australia
I have both PADI and SSI. SSI is cheaper and in my opinion a more up to date course.
Still. Its a recommendation.
You can dive as deep as you like, but be prepared to face the consequences. There are no "Scuba police".
The so called limits are in place to cover the back sides of agencies that's all. Because if you go below 18m you need to start taking Narcosis into consideration. The longer you dive at 30m the longer you need to use air at decompression stops.
The reason the "limits" are there is that an OW course doesn't cover the more advanced aspects. It doesn't mean you cant go ahead and go deeper....
Your Qualifications are to prove that you are trained to undertake an 80M dive.
This allows you to get the gases required.
Ofc being only AOW i wouldn't dream of an 80M dive as i would be totally uncomfortable doing that deep! I want to be closer to the surface in case there is an issue and i need to surface quickly.
There is a reason why some places offer "deep" dives to wrecks that are 28-35m deep and allow Open Water members to go... they are briefed on the dangers of going that deep and supplied a dive computer. Then are made to do the stops on the way back up.
if these "limits" were 100% DONT EXCEED then these companies couldn't offer this service.
I wont go below what my Insurance says, because that is a rule!
taken from here: http://www.scubaboard.com/community/threads/going-deeper-than-18m.430176/page-2
"This one crops up a lot and there is a bit of a grey area but to clarify the position...
The PADI OW and AOW depth limits are, indeed, "recommendations" only. They are not enforceable by any agency - unless local regulations stipulate otherwise. A previous poster, for example, mentioned that PADI DMs are not allowed to take OW divers deeper than their certification allows - ie 18m/60ft. This is not, strictly speaking, correct. A PADI professional is required to abide by the depth restrictions applied to the Scuba Diver certification (12m/40ft) and Junior certifications, but NOT for any certified adult diver.
During training dives, a PADI instructor (as, I assume, are most agency instructors) is required to abide by depth limits which are set as standards in the training program, and rightly so, I think.
Some dive centres do insist on certification before depth - i.e. if you want to go past 18 metres you *must* be AOW certified. One centre I used to work for insisted that a very easy wreck penetration could not be carried out by divers who were not certified with the Wreck Specialty. Says who? The management of the centre, not the agency.
Consider the following - many of the customers I dive with in my current job are very experienced, with 30 or more years and hundreds or thousands of dives under their weight belts. Some of them only got the OW certification because the market changed and most dive centres these days insist on some form of certification before people are allowed to go diving. Also consider that, as an instructor, I can take somebody with only 4 OW training dives to 30 metres on their first AOW training dive (although this is not recommended by PADI). So - who should go to 30 metres? The OW diver with 4 dives or the OW diver with 500?
As a guide, I use my good judgement. I am not going to take a freshly certified diver to 30 metres after just completing their OW course, but I don't mind popping a few metres deeper than the recommended 18. After they make a few more dives, why not, if they're good enough and they understand the extra risk?
Some locations have extra local regulations which are legally binding and insist that depth must equal certification level - I was in Queensland, Australia for a while and I believe (although I'm happy to be proven wrong) that local law limits divers to the maximum depth of their certification - in which case, breaking the limits is equivalent to breaking the speed limit when driving a motor vehicle.
There are extra risks associated with deeper diving, and so therefore good judgement is required if one wishes to descend past the recommended depth limits. I think that in some circumstances, however, if the diver is aware of what they are doing, and is comfortable with those extra risks, that it is acceptable to dive that little bit deeper. I qualify that within the general 30-odd metres of recreational diving, however. If somebody wants to go past 30 metres then yes - appropriate deep diver training is essential.
Safe diving,
"
You can dive as deep as you like, but be prepared to face the consequences. There are no "Scuba police".
The so called limits are in place to cover the back sides of agencies that's all. Because if you go below 18m you need to start taking Narcosis into consideration. The longer you dive at 30m the longer you need to use air at decompression stops.
The reason the "limits" are there is that an OW course doesn't cover the more advanced aspects. It doesn't mean you cant go ahead and go deeper....
Your Qualifications are to prove that you are trained to undertake an 80M dive.
This allows you to get the gases required.
Ofc being only AOW i wouldn't dream of an 80M dive as i would be totally uncomfortable doing that deep! I want to be closer to the surface in case there is an issue and i need to surface quickly.
There is a reason why some places offer "deep" dives to wrecks that are 28-35m deep and allow Open Water members to go... they are briefed on the dangers of going that deep and supplied a dive computer. Then are made to do the stops on the way back up.
if these "limits" were 100% DONT EXCEED then these companies couldn't offer this service.
I wont go below what my Insurance says, because that is a rule!
taken from here: http://www.scubaboard.com/community/threads/going-deeper-than-18m.430176/page-2
"This one crops up a lot and there is a bit of a grey area but to clarify the position...
The PADI OW and AOW depth limits are, indeed, "recommendations" only. They are not enforceable by any agency - unless local regulations stipulate otherwise. A previous poster, for example, mentioned that PADI DMs are not allowed to take OW divers deeper than their certification allows - ie 18m/60ft. This is not, strictly speaking, correct. A PADI professional is required to abide by the depth restrictions applied to the Scuba Diver certification (12m/40ft) and Junior certifications, but NOT for any certified adult diver.
During training dives, a PADI instructor (as, I assume, are most agency instructors) is required to abide by depth limits which are set as standards in the training program, and rightly so, I think.
Some dive centres do insist on certification before depth - i.e. if you want to go past 18 metres you *must* be AOW certified. One centre I used to work for insisted that a very easy wreck penetration could not be carried out by divers who were not certified with the Wreck Specialty. Says who? The management of the centre, not the agency.
Consider the following - many of the customers I dive with in my current job are very experienced, with 30 or more years and hundreds or thousands of dives under their weight belts. Some of them only got the OW certification because the market changed and most dive centres these days insist on some form of certification before people are allowed to go diving. Also consider that, as an instructor, I can take somebody with only 4 OW training dives to 30 metres on their first AOW training dive (although this is not recommended by PADI). So - who should go to 30 metres? The OW diver with 4 dives or the OW diver with 500?
As a guide, I use my good judgement. I am not going to take a freshly certified diver to 30 metres after just completing their OW course, but I don't mind popping a few metres deeper than the recommended 18. After they make a few more dives, why not, if they're good enough and they understand the extra risk?
Some locations have extra local regulations which are legally binding and insist that depth must equal certification level - I was in Queensland, Australia for a while and I believe (although I'm happy to be proven wrong) that local law limits divers to the maximum depth of their certification - in which case, breaking the limits is equivalent to breaking the speed limit when driving a motor vehicle.
There are extra risks associated with deeper diving, and so therefore good judgement is required if one wishes to descend past the recommended depth limits. I think that in some circumstances, however, if the diver is aware of what they are doing, and is comfortable with those extra risks, that it is acceptable to dive that little bit deeper. I qualify that within the general 30-odd metres of recreational diving, however. If somebody wants to go past 30 metres then yes - appropriate deep diver training is essential.
Safe diving,
"
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I've only done around phi phi island but it was good, a lot of people tend to go to Koh Tao to learn how to dive
Get yourself to Bali instead, then off to the Gili islands or even better Komodo national park! I learned to dive in Phuket and it was fabulous, but that was almost 20 years ago (bloody hell I'm old!) and by all accounts it's nowhere near as good now due to hordes of tourists and suncream ruining the coral.
If I had to learn again I would do the theory whilst in the UK and enjoy just diving when I went out to my chosen location. I always dive with an instructor, I know it's challenging to navigate yourself and plan your own dives, but I simply love the sensation of diving and looking at wildlife. For that purpose I can see and do plenty at very shallow depths in sheltered locations.
If I had to learn again I would do the theory whilst in the UK and enjoy just diving when I went out to my chosen location. I always dive with an instructor, I know it's challenging to navigate yourself and plan your own dives, but I simply love the sensation of diving and looking at wildlife. For that purpose I can see and do plenty at very shallow depths in sheltered locations.
I did my PADI open water in Koh Tao. I used Easy Divers, and really liked them. I didn't step foot in one pool, we got there. Filled out some paperwork and then we were underwater in the sea with a tank on my back within 2 hours. Did all the skills in the sea, and the classroom stuff was just a couple of hours over two afternoons.
Highly recommend them. Not dived since, but loved doing it.
Highly recommend them. Not dived since, but loved doing it.
I have been to Bali before and did not like the food too much, also etihad had crazy cheap biz class flights to Thiland. The a380 is a amazing aircraft in J.
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